All real learning involves learning by doing. But, do we know what we are learning when we learn by doing? At first glance, learning seems to be a conscious process. We tell people things, they hear them, and they learn them – consciousness, pure and simple. The idea that we learn by being told is pervasive in discussions of learning (Strauss and Shilony, 1994). Nevertheless, most of what we know of any importance in our daily lives is actually nonconscious. Furthermore, it seems fairly obvious that we don't learn nonconscious stuff consciously. The distinction between nonconscious and conscious learning is thus an important one to explore.

Most conceptions of knowledge involve an approach that implies that we know what we know. Following this is the idea that we can teach that knowledge by simply telling people what we want them to know (diSessa, 1982; Bruer, 1993; Bransford et al, 1989). To some extent this is true. For instance, we learn multiplication tables by memorizing them. But memorization doesn't provide much knowledge that is of real value. Proponents of learning by doing (as opposed to learning by being told) have long lamented the school system's lack of understanding regarding the idea that people learn by doing as their primary way of learning.